My first entry.

I've never had a blog before, but I think this is a way to be able to update my diary very easily, and also I would like to be more like Alan MX, my friend, my mentor and my guru.

I have been working on the new album since before the last one was finished, and it's all starting to fall in to place. I have a few slow headphone songs and some faster ones. I found a friend in Kevin M. Kirker - a harpist extraordinaire from Angel Island, California, and he has played harp on one of my songs. Another guest on the album is Sister Spinster - the mechanical drum machine invented and built by Thomas Truax. I wrote a song, and the beat that she gave just worked perfectly for it - kind of sounds like an old Wurlitzer merry-go-round organ style percussion section, which I like a lot.

It's weird that this is the first album where I don't have Peter Lyons and Stephanie Dade singing and playing. I miss their inputs, and I hope they will be available again in the future. It's hard when you live in a different country.

Yesterday in Paris I sat and watched a man play a ships piano by a fountain. I had never seen one before, but have often dreamed of owning one. He was really a great player - playing French standards in a kind of saloon style. I wish I could play piano like that. It looked like a big version of my old Schoenhut toy piano, and had a sustain lever which he used with his knee.

A man from Brighton has made a new version o one of my songs using old Gameboys. I will record the vocal and put it as a B side on the next EP, or perhaps give it away free with the first copies of the album sold. Not sure yet.

That's it for now.